The New York Post and The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) filed a lawsuit against Amazon-backed Perplexity AI over the alleged illegal use of many copyrighted stories.
The parent companies of the publications, NYP Holdings Inc. and Dow Jones, are suing Perplexity AI over a “massive amount of illegal copying” and demanding that the artificial intelligence startup stop using their copyrighted published works to answer their users’ questions.
Why did the New York Post and WSJ file a lawsuit against Perplexity AI?
The joint lawsuit filed on Monday is the latest in an ongoing battle between publications and artificial intelligence companies over the questionable usage of copyrighted content to answer questions on their AI models.
“This suit is brought by news publishers who seek redress for Perplexity’s brazen scheme to compete for readers while simultaneously freeriding on the valuable content the publishers produce,” according to the lawsuit filed in the Southern District of New York.
In addition to suing Perplexity AI and demanding that they stop using their copyrighted works, the publications also require that any database they use to gather information from their websites or actively use them be destroyed.
Allegedly, Perplexity AI amassed large amounts of copyrighted content from the publications and stored it in its databases. Users could access this information using retrieval-augmented generation to access the works without payment or permission.
Robert Thomson, chief executive of News Corp, of which both companies are subsidiaries, said that Perplexity’s alleged actions are “an abuse of intellectual property that harms journalists, writers, publishers and News Corp.”
The ongoing battle between publications and AI
Suing Perplexity AI is just one part of the recent battle between publications and artificial intelligence companies. It is by no means the first time someone has sued or taken legal action against Perplexity AI.
The New York Times sent a cease and desist letter to the artificial intelligence company, asking it to stop using its copyrighted content. Moreover, Perplexity has had to enter revenue-sharing agreements with publications after accusations of using copyrighted works without permission forced them to pay up.
News Corp came to a multi-year deal with OpenAI to share their data with them, stating “that integrity and creativity are essential” for the progression of artificial intelligence.
Many other publications have taken action against AI companies over the copyright of their works. The topic is also heavily debated in the artificial intelligence community, as many believe that AI companies have not done anything wrong in using data on the internet to advance their systems. Meanwhile, publishers believe that their writers’ copyrighted works shouldn’t freely be accessible to AI and that these companies should compensate publishers for their use.
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